tion. Even
Nature conspires with civilization to the same end. The great valleys
and rivers running north and south are so many natural ties, which the
most incorrigible perverseness, on the part of man, could alone prevent
from performing the office to which they seem so happily adapted in the
play of the civilized elements.

As we have seen in our brief view of Europe, greater political
unitization has been the result of growth in civilization. In the United
States, all natural, commercial, and industrial bonds of union are
becoming more fully developed. This evinces the direction of progress.

What, in the light of this view, are we to think of the doctrine of
'secession'?--of secession, that political dogma of recent development,
which, if made practical, would destroy all political unity of greater
compass than a State--a State, the idol of Southern political worship.
It would break any confederacy into fragments, and prevent the
consummation of those great unities which an advancing civilization
demands. This doctrine of 'secession' would remand us back to the
condition of affairs in Europe during the twelfth century, before
commerce, the Crusades, and the waking up of intelligence had commenced
the movement of national organization. The Southern States have a
barbarian institution in their midst, but, not satisfied with that, they
would inaugurate the practical operation of a new political doctrine,
which must introduce still another element of barbarism, and interpose
an additional obstacle to the progress of civilization. Shall this be?
It is opposed to the political tendency of the times; and the common
sense of mankind should forbid the acceptance of a political solecism in
the organization of government, which virtually annuls the unity and
integrity of the government itself.

There are crises, however, in human development, when the movement is
rapidly set forward; and others, when it may be as suddenly arrested or
thrown back, requiring long periods to regain the lost ground,
preparatory to a new advance. Our Union, only a brief while since,
appeared to be upon the point of irreparable rupture; the division of
this great Union into minor geographical districts, like the European
monarchies, seemed to be imminent. The determination of the South to
secede; a large portion of the influential press at the North pleading
their cause; Buchanan favoring secession; many in the North, then, and
for a long time p